Following from yesterday's blog post about my book club gathering to discuss "The language of flowers" by Vanessa Diffenbaugh, you may have guessed it, but the other flower themed dessert I made was a roulade. Yes, it's been nearly two weeks since I've made a roulade!!! Had to get one in sometime! This one was a rose and strawberry roulade.

As usual the dessert is refined sugar free, gluten free and dairy free. The rose flavoring comes from rose water added to the cream (whipped coconut cream). Also in the cream are some strawberries and some chewy freeze dried strawberries from my sister. They add a lovely texture to it.

Of course, it had to be decorated with edible rose petals.

The meaning of roses in the language of flowers varies depending on the color of the rose.

We had a great discussion about the book and flowers and foster care and many other things. I made each of them a tied little bunch of flowers to take home with them. The flowers I chose from the garden were:sedum - for tranquilitysage - for good health and long lifemarjoram - for blushes - with the hope that they feel young enough to still blush!

It was book club at my house this morning. I had selected the book "The language of flowers" by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. I loved the book - and so did the rest of the group.

The book is about Victoria who spent her childhood in the foster-care system, moving from one place to another, never spending more than a year in any one home. At the age of 18 she has to leave the system, even though she has no where to go. But she gradually finds that she has a gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them. She learned the Victorian language of flowers from Elizabeth, one of her foster parents - and finds it to be a way she can communicate to others. It follows her difficult life of learning to love when she has never been loved, going back and forth between her childhood and present day, as so many books seem to do nowadays! It's a lovely and at times difficult read.

For my group, I decided to use the flower theme for our gathering today. I served hibiscus tea and hibiscus sparkling water. The meaning of hibiscus is "delicate beauty" - and it's also really high in antioxidants.

I then made two desserts. The first one was little flower pots for each person, as you see in the photos.

In tiny terra-cotta pots I made "soil" cake from quinoa, walnuts etc from a recipe I found on Golubka's blog, for ant-hill cake. I'd never heard of ant hill cake but this version is gluten free, refined sugar free and dairy free. To be honest, it was a little too solid for my liking, a bit stodgy, but the taste was OK. Then I put a sprig of mint in the pot (thanks to my neighbor Janet who supplied the mint!) and topped it with a little pink, yellow or white edible daisy.

They looked very cute! Oh, and the Victorian meaning for daisy is "innocence".

I'll show you the other delight tomorrow! But in the meantime, I recommend the book.